Final balance of the European Championship 2015.
The men's standings are Sweden, Switzerland, Norway. The Norwegians have the bronze a bit bitterly, as they came through the competition without hesitation and very dominantly, but they ran into the Swedes in the semi-finals and couldn't make it more than a bronze. The fourth-placed Finns are slowly but surely approaching the absolute top of the world. The Czechs and the Dutch are falling. In the women's event, the Russians have the gold, then the Scots and the Finns have the bronze. Down go the Estonians and Hungarians. The Danes excelled in the B team, followed by the Austrians (promotion to A!!). In the women, the Italians and Czechs. What does that mean? The development of Czech curling has somewhat stalled and some countries have caught up, others have overtaken us. On the other hand, for example, the French, who have given us a lot of trouble in the past, are in Group C of the European Championships and the Latvians, who have also been to the World Championships and the European Championships, have stayed in the B group. So, it's not that bad. However, it is surprising that our top teams that aspire to be national teams do not (with minor exceptions) systematically work with quality coaches, some teams have never even tasted the job of a coach. Our eight-day extraliga, played according to two-year-old (i.e. invalid) WCF rules, does not prepare Czech teams for the demanding programme of the European Championship, World Championship, let alone the Olympic Games. Junior teams are of average to below-average quality and do not put pressure on the generation of players who should be at the end of their performance careers. We have high quality venues with excellent ice and we are unhappy when it "runs 13.5" in practice because we would like "15" as we do in the league, but at this year's European Championships the ice ran 13.2 - 14.00 and no one was offended. I'm afraid we don't perceive enough general developments in our sport (technical, methodical, organizational) and if we do, we have trouble applying them. The Czech men were unlucky this year in that they were the victims of an experiment that the CSC had tried in the past and backed away from after bad experiences. An internationally less experienced team that after a surprise win in qualifying goes to the European Championships in 4 weeks and meets their coach for the first time one day before the championships start is either a victim of lateness or foolishness. The Czech Curling Federation should not afford the controlled gamble of losing Group A, as this will rapidly reduce the chances of participation in the 2018 Olympics. This year, the spark of hope and the light in the tunnel are the players of the women's national team, so let us at least rejoice in their success and hope that a more positive future will develop based on it.
rnHail to Czech curling.